Wishing you all a blessed and peaceful year in 2024.
The family and I have successfully managed to get our fondue going!
I am glad I got the extra burner, because we emptied one almost before the oil was hot enough!
The cheese fondue mixed up nicely, but the hot plate was too hot, even on its lowest setting. Still, it was enough to get started while the oil heated.
Not pictured is the tempura batter, which got mixed up at the last minute. We still can’t do more than two items in the oil at once, as the food cools the oil down too much – which makes for a very slow meal. Perfect, as we watch Columbo and wait for midnight.
If we can hold out that long before just going to bed!
This has got to be the most ridiculous time we’ve ever had, planning for a special day.
We now have everything we need for food for both the oil and the cheese fondue. I’d already taken the oil fondue set down, ready to be washed and assembled. It’s a lovely set that includes a spinning glass ring around the pot that holds bowls for sauces. The cheese fondue set is a basic ceramic pot with a stand over a tea light. I just went to take it out to be washed and readied, too. I headed over to the shelf to get it and…
No pot.
I checked all the other cubes in the shelf, but no pot.
I started going through other shelves and cupboards.
No pot.
I even checked closets in my bedroom.
No pot.
After talking with the girls about it, the only thing we can think is, we didn’t take it when we moved. My older daughter now even half remembers us deciding that the big set was worth packing, but not both sets, but she doesn’t remember it well enough to be sure. Alternatively, it is among the things the movers lost, but I was positive it was unpacked and in that shelf!
Which is just hilarious. After all this, and we don’t even have a pot for the cheese fondue!
That, at least, is easy to substitute. We will just set up the hot plate and use a saucepan.
Or I could bake a round loaf of bread or two!
Since it is a lower temperature dip, we can use regular forks, though I think the big set has six fondue forks, and we only need four, so we should have at least two available.
Well, I know what to be on the lookout for in the future! 😆😆
On the plus side, while looking for the fondue set, I checked inside a box and discovered a set of lovely little serving bowls we hadn’t taken out of their packaging, and promptly forgot about.
Who knew wanting to do a fondue for New Years would be so difficult? Or that I would be doing so much running around this year!
After searching online, I decided to go to the nearest Canadian Tire, as the website said they had the gel fuel I needed in stock.
Of course, I walked right past the display and missed it, until an employee told me exactly where it was.
I was confused by the website description saying the fuel I got was a liquid gel fuel suitable for the burners we have, so when I got home, I double checked.
*sigh*
Another reason I hate using my phone as a computer. I so look forward to having my desktop again!
It turned out the three images in the listing were not three different views of the same product, as is typical. It was three different versions of the same product. The liquid fuel I bought, the liquid gel fuel, and the gel fuel.
The photo on the website for the gel fuel did not have the big blue box on the label, like in the above photo.
So I was reading a different description for products with almost identical labels.
Apparently, the one I got is suitable for cheese or chocolate fondue.
The prices were all the same, though, so it was a straight exchange. That part went smoothly.
After that, I still needed the dry white wine, but the liquor store I knew about was next to a Safeway, so I went there to look at their cheese selection.
Yes, I did find Swiss cheese.
I also had a slight heart attack over the price! The smallest block was still over $17!
Then I noticed the display above.
There was ready-made cheese fondue sauce.
For only $12.
The ingredients differ from our recipe slightly. We don’t have potato starch, but the recipe calls for either flour or cornstarch as a thickener. I have never seen kirsch in my life, so that would have been skipped, but it is an optional ingredient in our recipe. “Spices” is vague, but we would use whatever we have in our cupboard. Sodium phosphate is not in the recipe, of course, but it’s just a salt compound used as an emulsifier.
I had actually been trying to find this in all my shopping, and never did until today. If I’d found it before, I would have bought three, and we would have saved quite a bit of money!
I just got the one, though, as a back up.
I hadn’t had breakfast yet, so I also got a little thing of hot chicken strips with potato wedges, and a drink. Plus, I found some stir fry pork that I also got for the oil fondue.
My next stop was the liquor store. After going through the first set of doors, I was confused when the second set wouldn’t open. Then I realized there was a woman’s voice calling to me.
She was seated behind a plexiglass barrier. I had to slide my photo ID through a slot for her to scan before she let me in. I’ve never had to do this before, so I had to ask. Turns out, they had a major problem with theft, so now they don’t let anyone in without scanning ID first!
People really suck, sometimes.
But not here! She was really nice. Once inside, I started looking at the wine section for the Canadian wines. An employee saw me and offered to help. I told him I was looking for a dry white wine, and he asked if it was for drinking or for cooking. I told him it was for a fondue. He got quite happy and recommended a dry riesling, which is what he always uses for fondue. I was quite tickled to find someone that actually does fondue; not a lot of people do, anymore.
He then led me right to the Canadian wine section and to his preferred riesling.
The price was right, so I got two!
Of course, I looked around as I made my way to pay for it. There are so many interesting drinks I’d like to try. One display caught my attention, though. It was a beer display, and the cans had a bison on it. I half saw the name, which immediately made me think of a particular Polish vodka I haven’t seen in years, Zubrowka, that uses bison grass.
The beer turned out to be called Zubr, which means bison, and yes, it is from Poland. I just looked it up. Turns out it’s a lager that has been brewed, under a different name, since 1768!
As I waited in line, the guy who helped me earlier came over to open another till, so he rang me through. As we chatted, I told him I don’t care for beer, myself, but my daughters like beer, so I got it for them to try. He said it was quite good. I hope they do like it. I can’t remember if they like lagers. I do know they don’t care for IPAs, but that’s all I can remember.
So that went well enough.
I remembered that my husband needed distilled water for his CPAP humidifier. Since it was on the way, I decided to stop at the Walmart.
Out of curiosity, I also looked for the gel fuel, since I was pretty sure I saw it at this location before, but found nothing.
Nor did I find distilled water! All I could find was spring water, which can’t be used in the humidifier.
After a while, I snagged an employee with a pallet jack. I figured he might have at least seen the display, or even filled it.
He didn’t know, but after parking his pallet, he went looking for me. Then he found another employee with a phone and tried looking it up. They spoke for a while, though not in English, so I had no idea what they were saying. Their final conclusion, though, was to check the pharmacy section. I mentioned I did check there, but I may have missed it.
The guy then went with me to the pharmacy section and found another employee there to ask. This guy came over and explained why I wasn’t finding it.
The distilled water was under recall. !!! Something about the plastic. They had a whole pallet in the back they weren’t allowed to sell.
Well, now!
Of course, I’d found a couple of things we needed while looking for the water, so I paid for those. I decided to take a different route home, to hit the town near us, and try the grocery store there, which carries a different brand, then gas up and go home.
Once at the store, I went straight to where they have their distilled water and…
The shelves were empty, except for a couple jugs of spring water.
I snagged an employee. He went to check in the back and came out with a jug.
With all the trouble I’ve been having, I asked if there was more available. He asked how many I wanted, and I asked for 3 more. He went back, then returned with a case of four for me! The one he brought first went straight onto shelf. Lol
Finally! All done!
Of course, I got something extra, too. There were Christmas chocolates at half price, so I got three boxes. Most of the sales on Christmas stock has been things like only 50 cents off.
With all that driving around, I burned quite a bit of gas. I’d chosen where I went in the city so I could fill up at Costco. If I’d known then, how much trouble – and how expensive! – everything would be, I would have gone to the nearer city and found everything I needed, burned less gas, and saved money in the long run.
Ah, well.
At least we’ll know better, for the next time we do fondue!
The Re-Farmer
[Edited for autocorrect typos. I hate blogging on my phone!]
I was just talking to my daughter about our fondue plans. As we were talking, she took a look at the box with the spare burner I got.
The one that was on the shelf right next to the burner fuel that I got.
Unlike me, she turned the box around to read the side.
Oops.
It’s compatible with gel fuel only.
So I went and brought down the oil fondue set and checked the burner.
They’re the same.
I’m going to have to try and find gel fuel, after all.
Looks like I might be going further afield than originally planned, tomorrow. I will try a specific hardware store in town, first. If they don’t have it, I’ll have to drive to the nearer Walmart, where I’m sure I saw some in stock before.
What I can’t understand is why the Canadian Tire had only liquid fuel with only gel fuel burners. It’s not like there were spaces on the self for gel fuel or liquid fuel burners. They are even the same brand.
As for the liquid fuel, unless I can find the right burners for them, I’ll return them.
Danity. I never expected this to be a hard thing to find! But then, fondue aren’t as popular as they used to be, and oil fondue even less so.
Depending on how things go, I wonder if we would be able to use the hot plate as a heat source, instead?
I headed into the city to pick up mostly stuff for our New Years fondue plans, though of course, I got other stuff, too. I ended up going to 3 different places in the city, then swinging by town to pick up my husband’s insulin, before heading home.
I’m totally drained.
My first stop was actually the post office, where I found a package I am quite excited about. I haven’t opened it, yet, but it’s a book I won.
My next stop was in the city. The international grocery store is part of a franchise, and there is a new location near the Costco we normally go to. It’s not an international store, but we used to shop this franchise all the time before we moved, so I decided to check it out. They had hot food available, too, so that was where I had breakfast.
Sadly, I was a bit disappointed. Not in the food. That was delicious. There just weren’t a lot of options. The store may be about the same size as the international one we normally go to, as far as I could tell, but all the departments seemed like they were half the size. I was particularly surprised by how small their meat section was. The beef section was not only small, but many of the choices were discounted “cook tonight” packs that were near the end of their shelf life. The Cat Lady often buys these to use as cat food! Even the regular cuts, though, were looking oxidized.
Still, this is where I got the bulk of my list.
This is what $229.84 looks like.
Yeah. Pretty sparse.
Here’s what I got.
For the meats, I was looking mostly for stir fry type cuts, but there weren’t any. So I just got trays of beef, pork and chicken breast that we could cut to size ourselves. Then I found a package of frozen hot pot combination meats – beef, pork and lamb. So I got one of those, too. I also got small frozen scallops. Together with the frozen prawns I got earlier, we have plenty of protein for our oil fondue. I got 2 bottles of peanut oil for that.
I found a basic recipe for the cheese fondue, and was looking for Swiss and Gruyere, but was really surprised by how small their fancy cheese section was. I got two cheeses there, but I wasn’t sure if they would be enough.
I got a tempura batter mix, plus a mixed vegetable tray and some pears, strawberries, and tiny crimini mushrooms. The pears and strawberries are for the cheese fondue, along with the French bread. The mushrooms are for the tempura batter and the oil fondue, while the vegetables can be for either.
I picked up various sauces for dipping, but could not find marinara sauce anywhere. That was unexpected.
Aside from other household stuff, I also got two tubs of seasonal ice cream- Eggnog flavour – that were on send of season clearance.
My next stop was Walmart. The main thing I was looking for there was fuel for the oil fondue burner. I’d seen the gel fuel we’ve used before at another location, so I figured I’d find it at this one.
This is what $74.43 looks like.
Also very sparse!
You’ll notice there is no fondue burner fuel in there.
I looked all over that store! I even asked for help. The employee I snagged looked up gel fondue fuel on her phone at the Walmart website, which said it was in stock, but she couldn’t find it. I went through the housewares section it should have been in, the camping fuel section, the grocery aisles, and even end cap and aisles displays. Nothing!
I did find stir fry beef, though, and grabbed a package as an extra. I also got another cheese for the fondue.
Still no marinara sauce!
Along with drinks and household items, there are mini cupcakes for dessert. While still looking for the burner fuel, I spotted an excellent sale price on Kraft Dinner, which my daughters like, so I snagged a case. By this time, I was also feeling really dehydrated, so I got some drinks for the road.
I still needed burner fuel, though. I can’t say I was too unhappy about not finding it at Walmart. The employee that tried to help me showed me her search results to confirm the item, and it cost almost $40! For one bottle, not a case. I was shocked, to say the least!
So, it was another trip up the road to a Canadian Tire.
I’m happy to say, I found what I needed, and more!
This is what $54.24 looks like.
It wasn’t the gel fuel we’d used before, but I confirmed it was for fondue burners.
They were $9.99 each, so I bought two.
I also got a little strainer to scoop out anything that might fall off the fondue forks. Plus, an extra burner. That way, if we used up the fuel in the burner, we can just switch and not have to wait for it to cool down.
And yes. That is a second vegetable peeler you are seeing in there. We need to replace the ones we have, and are forever losing track of them.
Since I was there anyhow, I picked up a tri-light bulb for my bedside lamp, which has a normal incandescent bulb right now. I also picked up no-mortise door hinges. The girls took measurements of where they need to hang a door. It may be possible we have an interior door in one of the sheds they can use. If so, these hinges can be used. We shall see. If they can’t be used, it won’t hurt to have them for the future.
That done, my next stop was for gas at Coscto. Prices around the city have dropped to 129.9 cents/L, but Costco was 117.9!
From there, it was time to drive the hour or so to pick up my husband’s prescription. By then, it was getting quite dark.
It was also a long time since breakfast, so after I got the prescription, I went to the Dairy Queen and got us burgers for supper.
That and I really needed to use a bathroom, and the one in the pharmacy was out of order!
Yeah. That’s my excuse!
As of now, the only thing we are missing is dry white wine for the cheese fondue sauce. I will pick that up tomorrow!
Somehow, I didn’t expect that doing a fondue for New Years would make it more expensive than having all finger food for Christmas!
Shadow has taken to cuddling me at night, but his sister, Tin Whistle, has taken to having a party on my daughter’s bed.
While she’s in it.
It’s gotten so bad, the girls are looking at building a door. The upstairs is two rooms, and we only ever had a curtain over the opening between them. If they want to get any sleep, they need to make a door to fit.
Plus, we need to get these teenagers adopted!
Beyond that, we are having another quiet day of domesticity. I expect to be heading out tomorrow to do put shopping for New Years, and run other errands.
It’s such a gorgeous day, today. Clear blue skies, sunshine and temperatures just below freezing. T-shirt weather! 😄
Sad Face’s nose is still looking messy from a fight a few days ago. No new injuries. It’s always a bit distressing when I tend to the cats and find fresh blood. Most recently, on the fur of one of the friendly white and greys. Friendly to humans, that is. Friendly with most of the other cats, too, but they do get testy with each other, at tumes. To be expected, with so many maturing males. From what I could tell with the blood I saw, it wasn’t his. There were no injuries!
It is turning out to be a gorgeous sunny day. Our temperature has even gone above freezing, which is a few degrees warmer than forecast.
I got to enjoy the sun and warmth during a quick trip into town. Three of our four 18.9L (5 gallon) water jugs for drinking water needed refilling. We usually do it when two are empty. Of course, I picked up a few more little things, but will be doing a larger trip, once pay comes in.
Before I left, I checked the tires on the truck, and none of them needed topping up. That’s a good sign. Especially since we will probably have to wait until the end of January/beginning of February to get those valves replaced, depending on what the status is with my computer.
The check engine light was on again, so after I got home and unloaded, I hooked up the OBDII scanner. I got the expected codes for rich fuel mixture but, lo and behold, there was a new one.
Not an unexpected one.
Yup. There’s a code for the oil pressure sensor. Our new reader even gives extra info, including the fact that this code is very common for our make, model, and year, plus the top fixes. Those included changing the filter, doing an oil change, and even replacing the sensor. The most common fix being a simple oil change.
I really like having this other OBDII reader my husband got me. The first one we got just gave the codes, and that was about it.
This one also allows me to clear the codes. The rich fuel codes are permanent codes, but I’ve found that, after clearing the codes, then tanking up, they would clear themselves. The most important thing is knowing what’s going on, and getting an idea of how urgent or not something is.
If all goes to plan, my only outing before January will be when my husband’s private insurance disability payment comes in – with all the holidays, I’m not quite sure what business day that will be – and I make one last shopping trip of the year. We will be doing both an oil and a cheese fondue for New Years, so the food we get needs to be fresh, rather than the mostly frozen finger foods we got for Christmas Eve and Christmas day. Christmas day was highlighted by charcuterie boards – we had so much, I had to split it between two!
On Christmas day, we gave the cats a break with the ear cleaning. We’ve treated them with mineral oil for 10 days, and from what we’ve read and been told, that should do it. Some of the cats, however, still have insanely dirty ears – a sign of either continued mite activity, or just that it was so bad, we haven’t been able to get it all out. Our grandma seems to be the worst case. Black gunk in the ears of a black cat. It seems we just didn’t see what was happening until it git really bad, and my goodness, it’s hard to do her ears!
I do think it has made a difference in her, though. She is becoming more active and her appetite seems to be improving!
Some of the cats seem to be developing what looks like dandruff around the ears. We suspect the mineral oil may be getting a but much for their skin. So when we started up the ear cleaning again (if we need to do one, we need to do all), we switched to coconut oil. The girls are the only ones that use coconut oil in cooking, so the big Costco size tub they got is still quite full. It just needed to be melted, first, so the prepered strips of paper towel we use can absorb it. Which had the added benefit of the oil being still warm when we started.
Or, should I say, when I started. Before my daughter was able to start brung7ng cats, I was able to do Clarence, Tin Whistle, Misty, Shadow, Ghosty, Cheddar, Potato Beetle and Ginger, all on my own. They let me just come to where they were, curled up on my bed, and do their ears. Even Ginger, who had among the most severely dirty ears, due to not being able to self clean as well, no longer complains or tries to fight. Beep Beep is another one that has become quite calm about it, but I couldn’t reach her in the middle of the king-size bed. 😄
In the end, it was only Soot Sprite and The Beast (Tiny) we couldn’t find. Knowing the routine, almost all the other cats were milling around the good bowls, waiting for their wet cat food. Soot Sprite came up from the basement, and we got him done, but we had to start opening cans before The Beast came up from the basement, too!
This is Ginger, with a full belly, enjoying the cat cave. We have a second one, but the cats don’t use it.
I hope the coconut oil works well, and we can finally get their ears all clean. There are three cats that are still really bad for some reason. Thankfully, Ginger is not one of them!
The Re-Farmer 